Google Website Penalty
We all love to explore on Google. Millions of webpages get uploaded on the internet every second. With every click for a search, Google performs millions of random searches amidst its vast repository of websites. We all know that Google uses a series of algorithms or automated programs for its searches. We know these programs as spiders or crawlers, which crawl across the webpages, scanning for the keywords to index and generate the search results.
The Search Process
The search process is way more complicated and scientific than it seems to the user. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence is the base of search engine algorithms. Google uses its methods to rank a webpage based on the frequency and location of keywords, the existence of pages on the net and also on the number of links to a specific website. The higher the ranking given to a page, the higher will be its visibility to the audience.
Google Penalty:
In the course of optimizing the searches and content, website content developers go a long way in making sure that their content has visibility to a large target audience. Some may even resort to unfair practices that go against the marketing principles of Google. That is when the website gets a Google Penalty-a major hit to a site’s reputation.
Like a real-life penalty in a game of football, when the player gets penalized for using unfair means to win the game, google may impose a penalty on your website for any unethical practices.
It can happen because of the following reasons:
- Deliberate attempt to violate Google’s marketing practices
- Lack of SEO knowledge by the website developer
- Unethical techniques or the Black Hat techniques used in creating content
Black Hat Techniques are the unethical ways in which a site attempts to increase its webpage ranking. They comprise:
- Automated website content
- Doorway Pages
- Duplicate Content
- Keyword stuffing
- Link Manipulation
These techniques may pep up the ranking of the website by illegitimate means and for a short period. In the long run, the website rankings may drop considerably or they may even get penalized by Google audits which will come as a lightning bolt.
Google penalties can be
- Manual–Use Google search console (Webmaster) to manually check for penalty
- Algorithmic-Google’s updates or the site’s use of illegitimate means earns you a penalty
In any case, Google Penalty is the most dreaded thing and we should take every step to avoid it.
Precautions to avoid Google Website Penalty
No website would like to get penalized by Google. It not only impacts its rankings but also cuts down business and traffic for which they created it. Vigilant website content and SEO developer will ensure all means to provide engaging, trustworthy and legitimate content. This will not only keep the users in place but also help in giving impetus to the site’s ranks.
We can always go by Google’s rulebook to avoid any penalties:
- Content should focus on resolving users query and not primarily for search engines.
- Avoid any tricks or shortcuts to improve search engine rankings.
- Use unique, engaging and useful content for the site visitors.
- Avoid Black hat techniques like badly curated web pages with little content, duplicate content, doorway pages, keyword stuffing, cloaking or creating pages with malware or phishing.
- Make sure your website does not directly or indirectly take part in any link schemes to alter page ranks.
- Abstain from using scraped content from reputed websites on your website.
- Keep a track of your website from predators or hackers.
- Treat spam links seriously.
Following these healthy practices as suggested by Google’s rulebook will ensure a safe and convenient online journey for your website. Any manipulated deviations may earn you the black mark of Google’s penalty.
If your website gets penalized because of any violation of the above guidelines, make sure you take an immediate remedy to cure the issue. In such cases, you can submit your site for reconsideration by Google.
How to Fix a Google Website Penalty
3-Step Process to fix Google Website Penalty-
- Identifying the penalty
- Understanding its nature, impact, and reason for hitting your website
- Fixing the issue
Identification:
Even before you attempt to fix Google’s penalty on your website, you first need to identify the nature of Google’s Penalty i.e. whether it is a manual penalty or an Algorithmic one.
You can always use a Penalty Indicator Tool to show which Google Penalty or Google update hit your website. Signs like a sudden drop in the page rank, traffic drop or de-indexing of several webpages can show a Google Penalty. You can use Google’s Search Console or Google Analytics or both for enquiring the same.
Understanding:
Once you have recognized the penalty, try to audit the nature of the penalty. Some common manual penalties can be for unnatural backlinks, duplicate content or spam. Common Algorithmic penalties can be for low or duplicate content.
Understanding and auditing which algorithm impacted your website would help you in understanding the way to give a remedy.
Fixing the Issue
If you have any unnatural link penalty on your website, you can fix the issue by removing the excess backlinks to irrelevant sites. For this, you need to locate all the backlinks by using external tools like Linkquidator, Google’s Disavow, Linkdetox, and the Search Console.
Try to locate all the harmful backlinks and then the next attempt is to contact that website owner to remove that link from your website. You can either do it manually or use any Contact Finder tool to ask the link owner to remove it. You can even submit a file to Google to ignore these links in the form of a Disavow file.
We can sort content related issues out by either removing the content entirely or re-creating it with more meaning and usability.
We can fix duplicity issue with either deleting the duplicate content or adding a canonical link.
Conclusion Google Website Penalty
Once you have attempted your best in trying to sort out the issue, and if you feel your website is now all healed up and good to go, you can always contact Google for reconsideration. You can submit a manual request through Google’s Search Console (Webmaster). Fill complete and correct request. An improperly filled form may lead to unnecessary rejection of your request.
Once Google receives your request, it will assign a quality check for your website. It is like a re-examination conducted to test your website’s eligibility for the network.
Reconsideration of your website may not work every time. It is, therefore, necessary that we repeat no such actions that result in penalties on your website.
To keep your website safe and healthy we always recommend:
- Make continuous audits
- Monitor the backlinks religiously
- Keep checking for duplicate content or scam
Identification, analysis, and understanding of Google penalties are essential to avoid and refrain from them. Adopting healthy SEO practices is always recommended to maintain your website’s search engine rankings. SEO may not always be easy and there is no shortcut to it. After all, we all are connected to this giant portal-the Internet. It becomes the responsibility of all of us to safeguard the information network to the best of our abilities. Only then, would an incredible Google experience be possible.
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